PREPARATIONS for the Mutare edition of Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) that takes place from October 25 to 26 have gathered momentum.
Entertainment Reporter
Events for the Mutare Book Fair are slated for Queens Hall and Turner Memorial Library in the Manicaland province capital.
ZIBF board chairperson Musaemura Zimunya said their aim was to take the provincial fair a step further with this edition.
“We want to take advantage of this opportunity to grow our Mutare Book Fair for the benefit of our schools, universities, scholars and members of the general public,” Zimunya said.
“The programme will run alongside the usual exhibitions incorporating the children’s reading tent and the live literature centre, not to mention The Writers, Publishers, Librarians and Booksellers Workshop. In addition, however, ZIBF are introducing a new item – The Mutare Literary Evening — scheduled for October 25.”
The literary evening would see the public interacting with authors, publishers and exhibitors in general.
Literary evenings were an integral part of this year’s ZIBF programmes having been hosted at The Bulawayo Book Fair, The Masvingo Book Fair and The Harare International book fair.
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“In all our 2013 book fairs, we have been running The ZIBF Literary Evening in order to enhance the ambience of fairs and give authors and members of the public something new and relevant. In every one of these events, the response of both the writes and the public was overwhelming,” Zimunya said.
This year’s fairs have all been held under the theme ZIBF@30: Enabling Creativity, Writing, Publishing and Reading to mark three decades since the main fair took off.
Zimunya said one key feature of the Mutare Book Fair would be the Writers, Publishers, Booksellers and Librarians Workshop scheduled for October 25.
“We have identified some of the leading lights from the literary, publishing, librarian and bookselling sectors to make presentations on some of the abiding thorny challenges to the book sector.
“We have, in addition, found room for contributions to Ministry of Home Affairs, through the Police Department, to address the much vexed problem of piracy and share with the public what they see from where they stand.”
Other presentations target developmental issues such as the role of language and material cultures in the identity of a people as well as the impact of electronic media on children’s reading culture.
Topics on how books become schools set text books, digital tools for writing and marketing for authors plus the role of intellectual copyright in the book sector would also be discussed.
